May cover image

May 6, 20150 comment

Photo by Jozana Rempel

Rachel Junghans (right) with one of three girls in her charge for the week, at SOAR’s midweek carnival, a joint effort of all SOAR groups leading children’s ministries. Rachel, together with 19 other youth and 6 leaders from La Salle (Man.) Community Fellowship youth group, ran a VBS in St. Norbert on the outskirts of Winnipeg.

The experience was part of SOAR Heartland, MB Mission’s 10-day discipleship and mission opportunity for Manitoba high school students each spring break.

For their first two years at SOAR, La Salle did inner-city ministry, says youth leader Steve Bock, but the past three years, they have felt called to reach out closer to home in St. Norbert, where they have developed “quite a following.”

MB Mission is intentional about bracketing the five service days with orientation and debriefing, and ending each day with worship. “SOAR is one of the first times the youth understand that God has a role to equip them for in mission,” says Bock.

He sees tremendous spiritual growth over the week: “I’d equate the growth we see at SOAR to a year of youth group Bible studies.”

The third night of orientation, there was a session on letting go of the lies we tell ourselves and claiming the truth in Scripture.

“We prayed students would encounter God,” says Bock, “and we saw breakthroughs in their lives.”